The report draws on input from over 500 clinicians and evaluates vendors on four “bases” of interoperability: availability, location, workflow and impact.
Findings from the KLAS 2016 Interoperability Report rate athenahealth highest among eleven other vendors for the company’s ability to share data with other electronic medical records (EMRs). Supporting the fact that 79 percent of physicians reported last year that the majority of patients they treat also receive care from providers who are outside of their network, athenahealth has strategically prioritized increasing connectivity across all of healthcare to universally advance information access and usability regardless of care settings or healthcare IT system in place. Today, the company’s network supports more than 80,000 providers across the U.S. and surfaces 57,478 external-facing, electronic connection points. These connection points represent globally-available, information-sharing channels from athenahealth’s network to the rest of the healthcare ecosystem. Some of the company’s progress in making information accessible and usable is highlighted throughout the KLAS report:
- Interoperability satisfaction – athenahealth is positioned as a leading performer in interoperability satisfaction both inside-and-outside of its customer base. 65 percent of athenahealth customers surveyed noted that the information they receive from other organizations often or nearly always impacts care.
- CommonWell and Carequality integration – athenahealth leads the industry in fostering meaningful data exchange as part of both the CommonWell and Carequality record sharing initiatives.
- Same EMR-EMR exchange – the company is also seen as a leader in exchanging data amongst organizations leveraging the athenahealth network.
“According to a 2015 national survey, 95 percent of physicians felt near unanimous frustration over their inability to share and access electronic health information across the care continuum. Beyond frustration, physicians cited experiencing delay and difficulty delivering medical care because patients’ health records were not accessible,” said Jonathan Bush, CEO and president, athenahealth. “While we’re thrilled to be recognized as the vendor that is chipping away at interoperability, we believe that our industry’s work has only just begun. CommonWell and Carequality continue to bring otherwise competing market players together, which is necessary for data sharing, but not sufficient for creating a fully-connected, integrated healthcare workflow. Only when information can fully follow the patient in an unencumbered way will providers be truly prepared to thrive under value and risk-based reimbursement contracts, and will healthcare serve patients as it should from both an outcomes and experience perspective.”
